But there was a time, when to be branded as an accomplice in the slaughter of Richard Downie, made the blood run to the cheek of many a youth, and sent him home to his books, thoughtful and subdued. Downie was sacrist or janitor at Marischal College. One of his duties consisted in securing the gate by a certain hour; previous to which all the students had to assemble in the common hall, where a Latin prayer was delivered by the principal. Whether, in discharging this function, Downie was more rigid than his predecessor in office, or whether he became stricter in the performance of it at one time than another, can not now be ascertained; but there can be no doubt that he closed the gate with austere punctuality, and that those who were not in the common hall within a minute of the prescribed time, were shut out, and were afterward reprimanded and fined by the principal and professors. The students became irritated at this strictness, and took every petty means of annoying the sacrist; he, in his turn, applied the screw at other points of academic routine, and a fierce war soon began to rage between the collegians and the humble functionary. Downie took care that in all his proceedings he kept within the strict letter of the law; but his opponents were not so careful, and the decisions of the rulers were uniformly against them, and in favor of Downie. Reprimands and fines having failed in producing due subordination, rustication, suspension, and even the extreme sentence of expulsion had to be put in force; and, in the end, law and order prevailed. But a secret and deadly grudge continued to be entertained against Downie. Various schemes of revenge were thought of. Downie was, in common with teachers and taught, enjoying the leisure of the short New Year's vacation--the pleasure being no doubt greatly enhanced by the annoyances to which he had been subjected during the recent bickerings--when, as he was one evening seated with his family in his official residence at the gate, a messenger informed him that a gentleman at a neighboring hotel wished to speak with him. Downie obeyed the summons, and was ushered from one room into another, till at length he found himself in a large apartment hung with black, and lighted by a solitary candle. After waiting for some time in this strange place, about fifty figures also dressed in black, and with black masks on their faces, presented themselves. They arranged themselves in the form of a Court, and Downie, pale with terror, was given to understand that he was about to be put on his trial.